Most probable origin and statistical attribution of global mean sea level anomaly and rising tides since the 20th century

The origin of the anomalous global sea level rise (SLR) since the last century is highly controversial and not fully understood. The observed increase of high tides and decrease of low tides in many coastal areas around the world imply that some crucial physical mechanisms that govern the rising sea levels may have been overlooked. The relative contribution of nutation, axial precession, lunar acceleration, Earth’s spin and sea surface temperature on sea level anomaly was estimated using multiple regression. A very high relative contribution of nutation (49.4%) on the mean sea level rise, followed by axial precession (46.7%) and a secondary contribution of lunar acceleration (3.9%) was found. Sea surface temperature and earth spin rate showed negative correlations with SLR. The annual changes of the polar migration, axial precession and lunar acceleration appear to be the dominant physical mechanisms behind the SLR problem. These factors are largely driven by massive earthquakes. The rising oceanic tides in the last century up to the present is largely due to North Pole migration. Apparently, the observed nutation and axial precession are caused by the increased eccentricity of the lunar orbit through changes in the lunar distance and lunar acceleration. The observed SLR was also found to be related to the enigmatic 26-second microseism problem. Using the annual geomagnetic pole shift data of NOAA-NGDC, the observed microseism frequency of 0.038 Hz was found. This indicates that the planet is gradually tilting as it spins off its axis, with a concomitant gradual build-up of oceanic pressure and possible release of outer core magma/gas pressure, due to reduced lunar distance and increase in sea level. The effect of observed sea level anomaly and its relation to the Indian Ocean Geoid Low and the South Atlantic Anomaly are also discussed. Finally, length of day was strongly correlated with the polar nutation, earth spin and number of major quakes and may be related to SLR. Global simulations with EdGCM model also confirmed the increasing SST conditions due to the observed obliquity change.